An Accidental Man

by Iris Murdoch

  With love from

  Bet

  Austin crumpled the letter and threw it on the ground. ‘Why did you keep this?

  ‘Because — because I thought you might need to see it — one day.’

  ‘So you were carrying on with Betty all the same. This is an alibi which you arranged between you. You go round the world, but you have this all ready to show me. Why else did you keep the letter except to get yourself out of trouble?’

  ‘I knew your insane suspicious nature,’ said Matthew. ‘Of course I shouldn’t have helped Betty to buy the racket, but she was always so open, I didn’t want to be the one to suggest that she was married to a — I somehow couldn’t get out of it — anyway I was just going abroad again — Your wife loved you, she never imagined you’d seriously think those sort of thoughts about her — she was — you know how she laughed at everything — she was a simple open person —’

  ‘Why did you keep the letter?’

  ‘At first by accident. Later because I — thought you might be —’

  ‘It’s all a lie,’ said Austin, throwing back his hair. ‘What happened to the tennis racket?’

  ‘I cancelled the order. Because Betty was dead.’

  ‘What kind was it?’

  ‘Slazenger.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Austin. ‘It doesn’t ring true. You were carrying on with Betty just as you have been with Dorina. You’re a lying adulterer.’

  ‘I have never made love to either of your wives, Austin. This is all in your mind.’

  ‘Your sort don’t need to. You held their hands and fondled them and stole them. You discussed me with them. “Nervy and anxious” and so on. Poor Austin. They came to you about poor Austin. Isn’t that as bad as anything? Are you so stupid that you can’t see that? Do you really deny before heaven that when Dorina was here you held her hand and talked to her about me?’

  Matthew was silent.

  ‘Where is Dorina?’ said Austin.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I came here to kill you. It’s just as well you weren’t in when I arrived.’ Austin picked up the piece of cast iron and slung it across the room where it smashed the leg of a chair.

  ‘Have some whisky,’ said Matthew.

  ‘All right.’ Austin was hanging his head again. He kept sweeping back his hair and letting it fall. He took the glass without looking up. He gave a dry sob and began to drink the whisky. Matthew could hear his teeth knocking against the glass.

  ‘I’m sorry, Austin,’ said Matthew. ‘I have never meant you any ill. One day you’ll just have to forgive me.’

  ‘Or kill you. Could I have some more whisky? Is it Scotch?’

  ‘Bourbon.’

  ‘I thought it tasted funny.’

  As Matthew sat down he brought out his notecase and began writing.

  ‘What are you writing there?’ said Austin, regarding him from under his hair.

  ‘A cheque. For a hundred pounds. For you. I imagine you’re short of money.’

  Matthew reached the cheque over. Austin took it with the tips of his fingers, examined it and pocketed it. ‘Thanks.’

  There was silence for a while. Matthew drank his whisky greedily with closed eyes. Then Austin said, ‘Well, I must be off.’

  ‘Shall I ring for a taxi?’

  ‘No, don’t bother. Well, thanks for the cheque. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Austin paused at the door. ‘Was this stuff insured, by the way?’

  ‘Only for the journey,’ said Matthew. ‘Not otherwise.’

  ‘Too bad. Well, goodnight.’

  Austin went away through the hall, kicking through the sea of brittle fragments as he went. The front door still stood wide open. It closed behind him.

  Matthew reached for the soda siphon. Inside the cupboard he saw a white shape. It was one of the Sung bowls which, because it had a slight chip on the rim, he had put away out of sight. The soda siphon was empty.

  Matthew went out into the kitchen and put his right hand under the cold tap. It was still bleeding and very painful. He began to cry.

  ‘So you talked to your papa on the telephone?’ said Gracie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ludwig.

  They were in the drawing-room at Pitt’s Lodge. Clara and George had just gone into the country to spend the weekend with the Arbuthnots.

  ‘Did you have a good line, could you hear clearly?’

  ‘Very clearly.’

  ‘Isn’t the telephone extraordinary. Someone rings up from America and it sounds as if they’re in the next room.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What time was it in America when he rang?’

  ‘Two o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘What a funny time to ring.’

  ‘He wanted to be sure of catching me before I went out.’

  ‘I never can understand that time thing and which way round it goes. What was the weather like there?’

  ‘We didn’t talk about the weather.’

  Ludwig was sitting stiffly on the sofa, his hands folded on his knees, staring very hard at a pink lustre cup on the mantelpiece. Gracie was arranging some purple and white dahlias which Karen, looking very cheerful, had brought up from the Arbuthnot’s country garden and delivered briefly in person that morning.

  ‘Sweet of Karen to bring these, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Karen looks marvellous in her bridesmaid’s dress. Did I tell you Henrietta Sayce wants to be dressed as a page? She’s such a comical little girl.’

  Ludwig said nothing. Gracie glanced carefully at her fiancé and then stood back from her vase with tilted head. ‘Any news of Dorina?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why of course not?’

  ‘Do you imagine,’ said Ludwig, ‘that if I had any news of Dorina I would not impart it to you at once?’ He turned a tense face upon her.

  ‘All right, all right, I just asked. Why are you so cross with me, Ludwig?’

  ‘Sorry, Poppy. I’m not cross with you, I’m just —’

  ‘You are cross with me, I think. I believe you often are but you suppress it. You shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Sorry, darling.’

  ‘Your papa has upset you. Bother him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, never mind. What shall we do now? I know, we’ll go and have a drink in that new pub in the High Street. We could have sandwiches there too if you like. Then we take a train to Charing Cross and walk across Hungerford Bridge to the Hayward Gallery. There’s that exhibish of what’s-his-name we haven’t seen yet. Then you can go on to the B.M. and work for a little bit, or I could tuck you up here if you like — and then —’

  ‘Poppy — sorry I — I feel I don’t talk to you enough —’

  ‘Talk then. What stops you?’

  ‘You do. You’re stopping me now.’

  ‘Really, Ludwig, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘If I want to talk about anything that really matters you become all sort of cold and vague and change the subject. You can’t stand any sort of seriousness —’

  ‘That’s most unfair,’ said Gracie. ‘I’m just as serious as you are. I have my manner just as you have your manner. If I sound sort of — off-hand — that’s the way I talk. You know I’m serious. Don’t be so unjust.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, I’m sorry — But you do shut me up.’

  ‘Shut you up, a big man like you!’

  ‘Yes. You know perfectly well what I mean. You won’t talk about — You evade things — You don’t help me —’

  ‘What on earth are you saying, dearest Ludwig? What won’t I talk about or let you talk about?’

  ‘Dorina, for instance.’

  ‘But what’s the use of our talking about Dorina? We can’t help Dorina by endlessly chatting her over the way my parents do. You don’t want us to be like them, do you?’

  ‘No, but — You’re so — casual about it — and anything cou
ld have happened to Dorina — it’s awful, her disappearing like that, just awful.’

  ‘I agree it’s awful if anything’s happened to her, but I bet it hasn’t. She’s staying with someone or staying somewhere just to alarm us. She always was a tease.’

  ‘A tease. That doesn’t describe Dorina, at all.’

  ‘I know you’re very fond of her.’

  ‘Don’t bring stupid jealousy in.’

  ‘I am not jealous! Why in God’s name should I be! Or should I?’ Gracie threw the secateurs down onto the table with a crack.

  It was a cloudy day and a small cold rain was falling on to the little courtyard outside.

  ‘No, of course not! Please, Poppy! But you seem so determined not to see anything that’s really frightening in the world.’

  ‘I can see frightening things,’ said Gracie. ‘More than you imagine evidently. I just keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘Well, maybe — It’s just that — I’m not explaining properly — in Ireland — you wouldn’t even talk about Charlotte and you didn’t want me to go and see her.’

  ‘Oh not that again. Charlotte’s perfectly all right. There’s nothing like a sham suicide to make everybody love you. Now she’s the belle of the ball, except that Dorina’s stealing some of the limelight by having so very inconsiderately vanished!’

  ‘Poppy, you’re so hard on everyone. Charlotte really did try to kill herself.’

  ‘Pooh!’

  ‘It was only accident, Garth turning up like that, that saved her.’

  ‘You wish you’d found her.’

  ‘I ought to have gone to see her.’

  ‘You’re not really thinking about Char at all. If you were you’d just be relieved and forget it. You’re thinking about yourself. You feel guilty, not even that, you feel that some sort of satisfaction has been taken from you.’

  ‘No,’ said Ludwig slowly. ‘I know what you mean. But it isn’t like that.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be an intellectual but you’re very bad at explaining yourself, aren’t you.’

  ‘Well, these things are difficult, I guess. And one must be able to talk about them —’

  ‘Talk away, then!’

  ‘I was saying, one must be able to talk about them — with one’s wife — without being shut up. I feel I’m not telling you all the deep things that I think, and —’

  ‘I know you imagine I have no deep things, being only a woman.’

  ‘No, women can be deep too, of course —’

  ‘How splendid! But not me. You’re wishing you had a deep woman and not stupid me.’

  ‘Poppy —’

  ‘I know I’m uneducated. I know your father’s against me.’

  ‘He isn’t —’

  ‘He is. I read his letter.’

  ‘Oh — Poppy —’

  ‘It was sticking out of your jacket. Do you think it was easy for me to say nothing about that? Husbands and wives don’t have to scream to each other about every hurt, especially if it’s an unavoidable one. Often it’s better to keep quiet.’

  ‘Dear Poppy —’

  ‘I expect now that you’ve talked to your father you’ve decided to go home to America after all.’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘I’ve never felt really secure with you. And then you say I evade frightening things! I live with frightening things, I live and breathe them.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry —’

  ‘You don’t know. You’ve never tried to imagine what I feel. I’m sure all those men in Oxford despise me.’

  ‘Nonsense, Poppy! It’s just that — you seem to want us to live such a selfish shut-in sort of life —’

  ‘I want us to live an ordinary life. I love you. We’ve got money. I want to have children and live in a nice house and send our children to decent schools and have proper clothes and holidays and —’

  ‘Never bother about anybody else.’

  ‘I don’t want to live in a slum and be miserable, why should I? The idea of marrying you is a vision of happiness. Do you object? I have a talent for happiness. Do you mind? You’ve got what you want, Oxford and so on. Why shouldn’t I have what I want, it’s innocent enough, without being accused of selfishness?’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of selfishness and I’m not suggesting we should live in a slum! We can live what you call an ordinary life, which for most people is a pretty extraordinary one, without refusing to think about anything difficult or unpleasant! You seem to think it’s a simple thing for me to decide to live here and marry you and abandon my parents and my country —’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to marry me!’

  ‘But it’s been bloody difficult and terrible and of course I’m upset when my father tells me I’m acting wrongly.’

  ‘Do you have to be your father’s slave? You’re grown up, aren’t you? He can be wrong, can’t he? Mine can, why can’t yours? Or is he God?’

  ‘No, but he’s got something. Oh, Poppy, if you could only see the sort of cage I’m in — I don’t want to fight in that vile war, but neither do I want to waste my life and talents going home and protesting — and then the gods send me the job at Oxford and you and it’s all so easy and I don’t see into my motivation any more and —’

  ‘What does your motivation as you call it matter so long as you’re doing the right thing? As soon as a few things go well for you you feel guilty instead of grateful. Surely you’ll have enough trouble in your life, any human being does, not to fret because you’re lucky now? You seem quite cross that you’ve got a nice job and we’re rich.’

  ‘I’ve got to think it out, to think it through, to see exactly what I’m doing and why. You may dispense with thinking, but I can’t.’

  ‘Of course I’m just a mindless cow.’

  ‘Please —’

  ‘And if you’ve made up your mind why bother with all the thinking through — that’s just to make you feel comfortable doing what you’ve decided to do anyway. It’s a sort of self-indulgence, like endlessly discussing Charlotte and Dorina and how awful it all is and feeling superior and so on —’

  ‘Poppy —’

  ‘Anyway perhaps you haven’t made up your mind if you’re so shaken by a scolding from your father. I know I’m the trouble, it’s all because of me —’

  ‘Poppy, don’t make every damn thing so personal —’

  ‘Marriage is rather personal, I should have thought. You feel uncertain about me and that makes you feel uncertain about everything. Your father thinks I’m too young and too stupid and too frivolous to be your wife. Well, perhaps he’s right.’

  ‘Please let us stop this argument,’ said Ludwig. ‘I can’t discuss these things with you, you just get emotional and personal, I suppose all women do. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought the matter up. I’ll hold my tongue in future as you suggest.’

  ‘I didn’t suggest anything of the sort.’

  ‘You did. But please let’s stop this fruitless bickering. I’m going to the B.M. now. I’ll feel better when I’ve done some work. I’ll come back here this evening. Please forgive me. And let’s regard the matter as closed.’

  ‘Ludwig, don’t be so cross —’

  ‘I’m not “cross”. It’s — it’s more serious than that. But also it doesn’t matter. I mean as between us. Now I’m going to collect my books and go.’

  Ludwig marched out of the room. He collected his things and paused by the front door. There was no sound or movement from the drawing-room. He called out, ‘Well, goodbye, honey, see you about six.’ There was no reply. He went out and closed the door behind him.

  Some twenty-five minutes later as he was walking along Great Russell Street in the rain he saw Dorina. She was wrapped up in a mackintosh with a scarf tied round her head and her hands deep in her pockets walking along slowly on the other side of the road. He half paused, then walked on. She had not seen him. He thought, well, she’s all right then. His own confusion and misery were so grea
t that he felt unable to cope with Dorina, he felt no spring of interest in her, he almost felt resentment at seeing her now. To walk by was an expression of his own despair. His spirit was too tired, too troubled. He could not at this moment lift a finger for anybody. He went into the reading room and sat there in a daze of unhappiness, the dripping sleeves of his coat spread out damply over his books.

  Dorina returned to the little hotel where she was staying in Woburn Place. Ludwig had seen her and had passed her by. What could it mean? The unexpectedness and mystery of the happening made her feel sick with fear as she sat now on her bed, her teeth chattering with cold. The room was unheated except for a weak one-bar electric fire which had to be continually fed with tenpenny pieces. Ludwig had been told something, told to avoid her, ignore her. She had been condemned. She was cast out as if she were a criminal, shunned as if she were invisible. Ludwig’s passing by had been a new and ghastly portent. She had stood still looking after him, but although he had certainly seen her and had paused he did not now look back. This was the final proof that she was lost, that she was rejected, that she had fallen out of the world altogether.

  When Dorina had run away from the Villa on the day when Garth came there she had walked about the streets for a long time indulging her misery and her sense of aimlessness. She sat on a seat in a square with people passing her by and waited, almost as if she expected someone who knew her to come along and quietly lead her home. At first she vaguely intended to return to Valmorana. Then she realized that she could not do so. She had done something — but what was it? — which made it impossible for her to return to Mavis. Why she had originally left Valmorana she had by now forgotten. She had committed the crime of leaving and the even greater crime of staying with Matthew and Valmorana could not receive her again.

  By now it appeared to be afternoon, and Dorina was feeling faint with hunger. It was difficult to leave the seat where she was sitting, but she was afraid that she might actually lose consciousness there and be carried back to Valmorana without being able to help herself. She got up and went to a tea shop and had some coffee and a sandwich. To return to Valmorana still seemed to her like death. To go back there now would be to climb into her coffin. She had been there indeed as an animated corpse. The time spent there after her parting from Austin now seemed ghoulish, filthy with ghosts. It must be simple, she said to herself, it must be simple. She must stay out in the open now, do simple and ordinary things, not be stared at or thought odd for what she did or where she was. She decided to go to Charlotte, and she did in fact take a taxi to the flat and knock on the door. At this moment Charlotte was lying inside on the bed in a deep coma. It was an hour later that Garth found her.